ArabishWay

Arab Women's Showcase: AFMI
2022-05-26 - 2022-05-30
Arab Women in the Arts is AFMI’s annual showcase to honor generations of Arab women who have excelled in and revolutionized all forms of artistic expression.

The 2022 Arab Women in the Arts edition includes short and feature films, poetry readings, musical performances alongside a virtual gallery featuring paintings, photographs, fiber art and illustrations. The program will also include talkbacks and discussions with the artists about their work and their personal stories of empowerment.
This showcase runs from May 26-30th, with a highlight on the work of the late Lebanese filmmaker Randal Chahal Sabbag.
All programming available virtually with two in-person events in New York City and San Francisco.
For more information and to reserve your spot, visit the event site.

Civilized People: online movie streaming
2022-05-27 - 2022-05-29
During the civil war, many elites fled the country for safe harbor in Europe’s capitals, leaving behind apartments and villas in the care of domestic labor imported from Egypt, the Philippines and Sri-Lanka. These stories of survival have never been recorded, let alone inspired a fiction film. With scathing humor, Civilized People draws the portrait of a war-tormented Beirut neighborhood, at the mercy of the mood swings of a sniper. The plot weaves the tribulations of a Muslim militia fighter and a Christian maid, with the misadventures of a high-society lady who, undaunted by checkpoints and shelling, decides to fly back for a tryst with her lover. Civilized People premiered at Venice (official selection); it screened and at the Toronto International Film Festival and won the Nestor Almendros award (New York, 2000). The film’s sharp critique of Lebanese elites created an uproar in Lebanon, and was banned from being screened.

Pioneering Arab Women in Music: online movie streaming
2022-05-27 - 2022-05-29
A portrait of Sama’ Abdulhadi – the Palestinian techno queen, blasting around the globe. An emblematic artist of the Palestinian underground scene, Abdulhadi is one of the first DJs and electronic music producers to emerge from the region.
About the filmmaker:
Jan Beddegenoodts is a director & documentary film maker with a background as a photographer and the mayor of Cameltown. The last 10 years he has been creating films about resistance, rave culture and everything in between art and activism. He uses a cinematographic style to portray people with their passion and struggles. His work zooms in on a micro-reality to bring urgent matters to a world wide audience. You can watch his films online at www.cameltown.org

Free virtual screening of the documentary film "Going Home," directed by Omar Al-Qattan
2022-05-28 09:00 - 11:00 (America/Los_Angeles)
To register for this event please click here.
About the Film
1995; 48 Minutes, English and Arabic with English Subtitles.
“Gives a thorough insight into the historical events surrounding the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, filmed through the eyes of a former British General reliving the battles and considering the role of the British in the conflict.” —Cantilevers
In late 1947, Palestine is a country in the throes of war between Palestine’s Arabs and Jews. The British government is officially responsible for maintaining law and order but it quickly loses control and decides to abandon the country on May 15th 1948, leaving behind a war which was to lead to the tragic dispossession of over three quarter million Palestinian Arabs of their homes and the creation of the state of Israel. One man, Major Derek Cooper, witnessed those final days of the Mandate as an officer in the British army responsible for the protection of the Arab city of Jaffa. His experiences there marked him so deeply that he continued to work on behalf of Palestine’s refugees for most of his life. The film tells the story of his return to Palestine/Israel in the summer of 1995.
Going Home tells the story of Cooper’s return to Israel in the summer of 1995. In an effort to capture the past, Cooper and his wife revisit famous sites and talk to Palestinians and Israelis about the events of 1948. This film is a compelling look back at the beginning of a conflict that would last for generations to come.

Film Online Screening: Liwan: A Story of Cultural Resistance
2022-06-04 09:00 - 10:30
“Liwan” is a documentary about the cultural space of the same name in Nazareth. Producer and Director Doris Hakim first met the founders of Liwan – Sami Jabali, Sally Azzam and Silke Wanner – back in 2016, when an exhibition she was to put on in Nazareth was banned. They came out to support her, and she immediately fell in love with them and with Liwan.

To register for this event please click here.
To view the film trailer please click here.

Second Intifada - 20 Years On: Film Series: Online
2022-06-09 - 2022-06-12
The Second Intifada heralded a particularly fresh, urgent and experimental approach to filmmaking, in tune with the uprisings to which they contributed. Working at a distance from both the main political organizations and, often, the aesthetic insistences of Global Northern art cinema funding, filmmakers took advantage of accessible technologies to forge new notions of freedom. The prolific body of work from this period does not just defiantly catalogue heightened colonial aggressions and appropriations, it does so with a wit and eclecticism of approach that touched diverse audiences at home and internationally.
Featuring works by Ayreen Anastas, Nahed Awwad, Enas I. Al-Muthaffar, Annemarie Jacir, and Larissa Sansour

Celebrating Pride + Luminance: A Mizna Tribute to Etel Adnan
2022-06-23 - 2022-06-26
As part of Mizna’s Pride programming, we celebrate the life and legacy of the prolific artist, writer, and philosopher Etel Adnan in a series of film and literary programs.

Adnan’s thoughtful and fierce approach to her practice serves as an inspiration and will continue to have a deep impact. Mizna’s summer programs in film and literature will highlight the work of Adnan and the ways her significant contributions to the cultural realm continue to radiate in her absence.
Available virtually June 23– 26, 2022 WORLDWIDE. Tickets are pay what you can. TICKETS

Shall I Compare You to a Summer's Day? (Bashtaalak sa’at) [In-Person Only]
2022-06-23 20:30 - 22:30 | Northwest Film Forum, 1515 12th Ave, 2, Seattle, WA, 98122, United States
About the film:

(Mohammad Shawky Hassan, Egypt, Lebanon & Germany, 2022, 66 min, in English and Arabic with English subtitles)
** US premiere! Co-presented by Goethe Pop Up Seattle & Three Dollar Bill Cinema **
In celebration of Seattle Pride, we are proud to partner with Three Dollar Bill Cinema to present the US premiere of Shall I Compare You to a Summer’s Day, the arty, sensual, and short first feature film by Egyptian video artist and filmmaker Mohammad Shawky Hassan. Imaginatively shot in blue-screen studios in Berlin, Shall I Compare You is set in a time that is part tongue-in-cheek mythical past, part relentlessly contemporary, all queer, and all Cairo. When our mistress of ceremonies (the Egyptian singer, actor, and powerful diva Donia Massoud) undertakes to tell the story of a queer romance, she is diverted endlessly among the intersecting and diverging tales of the men of Club Scheherezade. This storybook Club is in an Egypt where gay and queer people can date, kiss, argue, and hold hands without (or almost without) fear. The fact that this freedom must be fantastical is the determinedly cheerful movie’s sucker punch
The movie’s light tone belies an artistic seriousness of intent, and the everyday intimacies of the men before the screen are given the weight of legend by fable-like chapter titles from the Arabian Nights and by song, mostly decontextualized Egyptian pop, sung earnestly by the men themselves or by Massoud. Slyly carnal, Shall I Compare You almost literally goes inside relationships, hookups, and the space between while finding wonderful opportunities for solidarity among its characters
In the film’s slippery, giddily artificial structure, Hassan employs what has been called a queer dramaturgy, characterized by a subversive joy in digression and sexuality not unrelated, perhaps, to that of the original Arabian Nights. Shall I Compare You brings a gloriously peculiar perspective to a complex of relationships that are limned by Grindr, tempted and troubled by polyamory, and full, always, of sincerity and heart. (Martin Schwartz)

Arab Film Series: Queer Arab Films
2022-06-24 - 2022-06-26
Starting next week! A special selection of Queer Arab films in celebration of June Pride month as part of the Arab Film Series online.

Screening Online: June 24-26
RSVP at arabfilmseries.org
Free / $5 suggested donation
Films available in North America

FILM PROGRAM
Brothers, Mike Mosallam, United States, 2018, 9 mins
Son of a Dancer, Georges Hazim, Lebanon, 2018, 20 mins
Dearborn Ash, Hena Ashraf, 2United States, 2019, 9 mins
Marco, Saleem Haddad, United Kingdom/Lebanon, 2019, 22 mins

The Arab Film Series online is a monthly program of films and discussions with artists and filmmakers from the SWANA region and its diasporas, presented by ArteEast in partnership with the Arab American National Museum and Arab Film and Media Institute.

Image credit: Son of A Dancer, directed by Georges Hazim

Brothers, Mike Mosallam, United States, 2018, 9 mins
Brothers is a coming-of-age short film-music video hybrid that follows a Muslim Arab boy as he comes to terms with his sexuality. Upon recognizing that he is different through the lens of his family and society as a whole, he decides to face his fears with the support of an older brother who stands by him and encourages him to be himself, in the face of bias and adversity.

Son of a Dancer, Georges Hazim, Lebanon, 2018, 20 mins
Arabic with English Subtitles
Majed, a 20-year-old man, is grieving the loss of his recently deceased mother. One day, he gets the shock of his life when he learns that she used to be a belly dancer. Torn between his relationship with his now-silent father, and Hanine, the woman who will help him overcome his grief; he takes a trip down memory lane in an attempt to discover the mysterious past of his mother.

Dearborn Ash, Hena Ashraf, United States, 2019, 9 mins
In the midst of the Arab-American enclave of Dearborn, Michigan, Roshan has moved back to her parents’ house in Metro Detroit after many failed years in NYC. With her OCD in overdrive she meets up with her old college friend Ayman during Ramadan. He disrupts their iftar plans, however, and Roshan finds herself having to deal with all sorts of characters who take over her car. The night turns out to be full of surprises – some annoying, and some wonderful.

Marco, Saleem Haddad, United Kingdom/Lebanon, 2019, 22 mins
English, Arabic with English
Omar has been living in London for a decade. He spends his days working in the City, and his nights ignoring phone calls from his family back in Lebanon. One evening, restless after another pleading voicemail from his mother, he reaches for his phone and invites over Marco, a Spanish student newly-arrived in London, who’s doing sex work to earn some extra cash. But when Marco arrives, Omar can’t shake the feeling that something’s not right about the young man. As their night together progresses truths are revealed, defenses are lowered, and Omar discovers the lengths that Marco has gone to reach London.
RSVP FOR ARAB FILM SERIES
June 24-26: Arab Film Series special Pride program ++ Walid Raad’s Festival of Gratitude

Streaming Cinema: The Guardian of Memory, directed by Sawsan Qaoud
2022-07-02 09:00 - 11:00
This Saturday’s Event: The documentary film “The Guardian of Memory,” directed by Sawsan Qaoud
Saturday July 2nd, 2022 – 12:00 Noon US EST; 7:00 PM Palestine Time.
Runtime 54 Minutes, English subtitles
Please click here to register for the film.

Free virtual screening of the documentary film "Lama Brothers - Pioneers of Arabic Cinema," directed by Raed Duzdar
2022-07-09 09:00 - 11:00
To register for this event please click here.

To view the film trailer please click here.
The screening of the film will be followed by Q&A discussion with film Director Read Duzdar.
About the Film
59 Minutes, English Subtitles, 2013.
(Lama Brothers) film, is a documentary film produced by Palestine TV and directed by Raed Duzdar. The film talks about the life story of the two brothers, Badr and Ibrahim Lama and their role in establishing the beginnings of Arabic cinema, in which their film ( Kiss in the desert ) is considered the first narrative Arabic film which was screened in the city of Alexandria at the (Cosmograph Cinema) in 1927. In addition to their production of dozens of films, which many of them are considered from the early movies in Arabic cinema

Free virtual screening of the documentary film "Stones of the Valley," directed by Ismail Habbash
2022-07-16 09:00 - 11:00
About the Film
Stones of the Valley is an oral history-based documentary of the activities and struggle of members of the Palestinian Communist Party from 1948 through 1967. The film director interviewed six prominent members of the Palestinian Communist party in an 0ral history format. Each member talked about their involvement in the Party and the trouble they encountered as a result on the hands of the authorities in charge of the West Bank at the time, including arrest, torture and intimidation. This is a rare treatment of a subject that has not been publicly discussed.

Movie (streaming): July: A Perfect Day + Ashes
2022-07-21 - 2022-07-24
In July, we present two of Hadjithomas and Joreige’s films which deal with absence. A Perfect Day tracks Malek, who has both sleep apnea and narcolepsy. He lives with his mother, Claudia, who has still not accepted his father’s disappearance 15 years earlier. She stays at home in case her husband returns. Malek drives around the city in search of Zeina, the woman he loves, but who no longer wants to see him. Each of them is trying to live with a void of lost love, but today may be the “perfect day” to lay their ghosts to rest.

Ramad (Ashes) follows Nabil as he returns to Beirut with the ashes of his father who died abroad. He tries to overcome his bereavement while his family insists on respecting rites and customs by burying a non-existent corpse.

Available virtually WORLDWIDE July 21–24, 2022. Tickets are pay what you can. TICKETS

Arab Film Series Online: Bloody Beans + Talkback
2022-07-28 - 2022-07-31
Arab Film Series Online: Bloody Beans + Talkback
Free Online Stream | Suggested $5 Donation – Register
This July, in commemoration of the 60th anniversary of the Algerian Independence from France, Arab Film Series presents Bloody Beans, an experimental take on the Algerian War by Narimane Mari. This program is accompanied with a recorded discussion with the filmmaker.
Shot on the occasion of the fiftieth anniversary of Algerian independence, (the film) is based on a loose, improvisational script about a group of children who, fed up with their monotonous diet of beans, decide to steal food from the French military barracks and end up capturing a young French soldier as well. This allegory of the Algerian War of Independence is enacted on the beach and within the populous neighborhoods of today’s Algiers, where almost half the population is under twenty-five years of age and largely unemployed. In a powerful mix of past (the struggle against French occupation) and present (the struggle of young people to survive), the film addresses the emotional realities of colonialism and contemporary forms of disenfranchisement., which sees the conflict played out by a group of vibrant children. Incorporating unique lighting and sound, the film is a complex exploration of colonial powers and the fight for freedom.
77 Minutes / 2013 / Algeria / Experimental / French and Arabic with English subtitles
For questions, e-mail Dave Serio at dserio@accesscommunity.org.

Free virtual screening of the documentary film "Aida Returns," directed by Carol Mansour
2022-07-30 09:00 - 11:00
We will be screening a 20 minute-condensed pre-release version of the film. The film screening will be followed by Q&A discussion with Carol Mansour, film director, and Muna Khalidi, producer. Click the title above for more information.

AIDA RETURNS – أمي العائدة إلى يافا

This film is a poignant, sometimes sad, sometimes painful, sometimes humorous, often absurd story of a multiple journey: the journey of loss as the director’s mother Aida struggled with losing herself to Alzheimer’s disease, but finding solace in her repeated “returning” to the Yafa and Palestine of her youth; the journey of the loss of a parent; and the ultimate return journey back to Yafa where Aida would finally find rest and be herself once more.
Close to four years after Aida’s passing away, the director’s friend and colleague Tanya who lives in Ramallah came to visit Beirut. When she heard about Aida’s wishes and yearning for Yafa, Tanya suggested that she herself carries the ashes back. The film accompanies director Carol Mansour as she engineers a way to return her mother to Yafa in search of eternal rest and peace for her. A return that is aided by an unlikely set of friends and strangers all coming together to facilitate what should have been a simple journey. This journey is at the same time very private and personal, while resonating with hundreds of thousands of Alzheimer’s sufferers and their families as well as hundreds of thousands of Palestinian refugees awaiting their return home.
This film is a tribute to the lost past of the director’s family, an attempt to restore part of both an individual and a collective memory, and a poetic nod and affirmation to all those exiled Palestinians forbidden from returning to their hometowns, even after death.

Click here to watch the film trailer.
Click here to register for this event.
We will be screening a 20 minute-condensed pre-release version of the film. The film screening will be followed by Q&A discussion with Carol Mansour, film director, and Muna Khalidi, producer

AANM’s Arab Film Festival
2022-08-12 - 2022-08-21
Friday, Aug. 12 – Sunday, Aug. 21, 2022
$75 Early Bird Festival Passes
AANM proudly hosts the annual Arab Film Festival (AFF) featuring the best of critically acclaimed and award-winning Arab American and Arab world films, many of which are unlikely to reach traditional American commercial theaters and often make their regional or national debut at AFF. This year, the festival will take place virtually and in-person, Aug. 12-21, 2022!
Early bird passes are on sale now – act fast and purchase yours today for only $75!
AFF showcases Arab and Arab American films for fans of Arabic-language movies and adventurous art-film lovers seeking new perspectives and outside-the-box thinking. We pride ourselves on creating a safe space, a platform for Arab and Arab American films and filmmakers and to give a voice to Arab and Arab American artists and their stories.
Stay tuned for the full schedule and film lineup!

Become a sponsor of AFF
ONLINE SPONSORSHIP | DOWNLOAD SPONSORSHIP FORM

Movie (streaming) : Je Veux Voir + Barmeh
2022-08-25 - 2022-08-28
The screenings presented in August highlight films by Hadjithomas and Joreige which have to do with vision and perception in post-war Lebanon. In Je Veux Voir (I Want to See), the filmmakers travel to Beirut with iconic French actress Catherine Deneuve. In the film, she meets with artist and actor Rabih Mroué, and together, the two drive through the regions of Lebanon devastated by the 2006 war, areas that remain inaccessible to most citizens. Through the presence and meeting of these two stars, the filmmakers hope to find the beauty in Lebanon which the eye can no longer perceive.

Barmeh (Rounds) is a video featuring Rabih Mroué, filmed driving through the streets of the city. Beirut is evoked through the driver’s stories and through sound, but the city is never seen; it is rendered invisible in an overexposed whiteness. Like his driving, Mroué’s stories spin in a circle. He is like a ghost, haunting the streets of a city where a reconstruction project is in a post-Civil War period.

Available virtually US ONLY August 25–28, 2022. TICKETS ARE EXTREMELY LIMITED. TICKETS

Virtual screening of the documentary film "Golden Harvest," directed by Alia Yunis.
2022-08-27 09:00 - 11:00
The Golden Harvest (shorter version) is a 6,000-year old love story in which the filmmaker tries to understand the profound, often troubled, relationship between olive trees and the people of Mediterranean, including her own Palestinian father. It is a complicated romance, sometimes funny,sometimes tragic, set in a region that includes some of the poorest and most conflicted areas of Europe and the Middle East and .

View fullsize

Alia Yunis

About the Filmmaker
Alia Yunis, writer/director, has worked on film and writing projects in several countries. Alia spent many years in Los Angeles as a screenwriter and script analyst for companies such as Village Roadshow Pictures and Miramax. Alia is a PEN Emerging Voices Fellow, has been a top ten finalist Zoetrope Screenwriting Awards and the recipient of a comedy-writing award from Warner Bros. Her novel, The Night Counter (Random House 2010), was critically-acclaimed by the Washington Post, Boston Globe, Entertainment Weekly, and several other publications. Her fiction and nonfiction writings have appeared in numerous books, magazines and anthologies and have been translated into eight languages. She has produced several short films, as well as the feature documentary, Man Hunt (2004), which played on the Oxygen Channel as a Valentine’s Day special.

"Madafeh" - Open Discussion About Palestine
2022-08-28 09:00 - 11:00
Event: “Madafeh” – Open Discussion About Palestine
Sunday August 28, 2022 – 12:00 Noon US EDT; 7:00 PM Palestine Time.
Please click here to register for this event.
Our guest for this episode is Peabody Award-winning journalist Jamal Dajani, co-host of the syndicated radio show Arab Talk. He will share the documentary film “Occupied Minds.” The film is the story of two journalists, Jamal Dajani, a Palestinian-American, and David Michaelis, an Israeli citizen, who journey to Jerusalem, their mutual birthplace, to explore new solutions and offer unique insights into the divisive Israeli-Palestinian conflict. The film takes viewers on an emotional and intensely personal odyssey through the streets of one of the world’s most volatile regions.

Director of the movie 1982, Oualid Mouaness on ZOOM
2022-08-28 11:00 - 12:00
Lebanese Americans and Lebanese American Society of Seattle will host the Director 1982 Oualid Mouaness on August 28, 2022, at 11 AM Pacific Time on Zoom.
Mr. Mouaness will be happy to answer your questions live.
https://bit.ly/3Rg69Gl

SIFF

Movie: 1982 at SIFF
2022-08-29 20:00 - 21:30, 2022-08-30 20:00 - 21:30, 2022-08-31 20:00 - 21:30, 2022-09-01 20:00 - 21:30 | SIFF Cinema Uptown, 511 Queen Anne Ave N,, Seattle, WA, 98109, United States
Lebanon | 2019 | 100 min. | Oualid Mouaness

1982 is a life-affirming coming-of-age tale set at an idyllic school in Lebanon’s mountains on the eve of a looming invasion. It unfolds over a single day and follows an 11-year-oldboy’s relentless quest to profess his love to a girl in his class. As the invasion encroaches on Beirut, it upends the day, threatening the entire country and its cohesion. Within the microcosm of the school, the film draws a harrowing portrait of a society torn between its desire for love and peace and the ideological schisms unraveling its seams.
In his debut feature, Oualid Mouaness delivers an ode to innocence in which he revisits one of the most cataclysmic moments in Lebanon’s history through the lens of a child and his vibrant imagination. It demonstrates the complexities of love and war, and the resilience of the human spirit.

Director:Oualid Mouaness
Principal Cast:Nadine Labaki, Mohamad Dalli, Rodrigue Sleiman, Aliya Khalidi
Country:Lebanon, France, Norway, Qatar, USA
Year:2019
Running Time:100 min.
Awards:TIFF19 Netpac Award, Grand Prix Cannes Écrans Juniors 2021, Oscars 2020 Official Selection (International Feature Film)
Language:Arabic, English
Has Subtitles:Yes
US Distributor:Tricycle Logic (theatrical)
International Sales:House Of Film

Movie: Costa Brava at SIFF
2022-09-09 19:00 - 21:00, 2022-09-10 14:30 - 16:30, 2022-09-10 19:00 - 21:00, 2022-09-11 15:00 - 17:00, 2022-09-11 17:30 - 19:00 | SIFF Film Center, 305 Harrison St, Seattle, 98109
Lebanon | 2021 | 107 min. | Mounia Akl
Filmed just a couple of months after the August 2020 Beirut port explosion that claimed more than 200 lives, this film references an earlier crisis of government corruption and ineptitude, the 2015 Beirut garbage crisis, when the streets of the city were congested with uncollected trash. But it functions as both a general-purpose lamentation for Lebanon as well as an allegory for our global climate catastrophe. Soraya (Nadine Labaki) and Walid Badri (Saleh Bakri) long ago fled the pollution and dysfunction of Beirut to live off the grid in an idyllic mountain hideaway. Raising their two young daughters and caring for Walid’s elderly mother, they have abandoned the political action with which they used to face the country’s problems—until the country’s problems come looking for them. One day, representatives of the government arrive in the valley where the Badris live to begin construction of a new landfill. (“Don’t worry,” they assure them, “This will be a ‘green’ landfill.”) The construction gradually encroaches on the family’s property, and the pile of garbage grows bigger. As toxic smoke fills the air and the water in the swimming pool turns blood-red, tensions rise within the family. “Where will we run away to this time?” asks Soraya. A famous singer and activist in her younger years, she is ready to take up the struggle again. Walid is not so sure. — Justine Barda

Director:Mounia Akl
Principal Cast:Nadine Labaki, Saleh Bakri, Nadia Charbel, Ceana Restom, Geana Restom
Country:Lebanon, France, Spain, Sweden, Denmark, Norway, Qatar
Year:2021
Running Time:107 min.
Producer:Myriam Sassine, Georges Schoucair
Screenplay:Mounia Akl, Clara Roquet
Cinematographers:Joe Saade
Editors:Carlos Marques-Marcet, Cyril Aris
Music:Nathan Larson
Awards:London Film Festival 2021 (Audience Award: Best Film)
Language:Arabic
Has Subtitles:Yes
US Distributor:Kino Lorber
International Sales:mk2 Films

Freedom Film Series: "Rebuilding Hope: Sudan's Lost Boys Return Home"
2022-09-15 17:00 - 18:30
Join DSP and HOPE For Ariang for the next in our Freedom Film Series, Rebuilding Hope: Sudan’s Lost Boys Return Home, on Thursday, September 15 at 8pm ET/5pm PT.
Rebuilding Hope tells the story of Gabriel Bol Deng, Koor Garang and Garang Mayor. As small children, they fled their villages in South Sudan due to civil war. This is a documentary film of Gabriel Bol, Koor, and Garang’s quest to find surviving family-members and rediscover and contribute to their homeland. This film is Donkeysaddle’s first project, made in 2009, and is as relevant today as when it was made. The screening will be followed by a discussion between Gabriel Bol Deng, one of the protagonists of the film, and filmmaker Jen Marlowe.
Tickets are by donation, and will be split between Donkeysaddle Projects and HOPE for Ariang.
